Senate Bill No. 272 - Enterprise Systems Catalog

Senate Bill No. 272 approved on October 11, 2015 adds a section to the California Public Records Act requiring local agencies to create a catalog of enterprise systems by July 1, 2016 with annual updates.

New information technology has dramatically changed the way people search for and expect to find information in California.

This technology has unlocked great potential for government to better serve the people it represents. A recent study estimated that digitizing government data could generate one trillion dollars in economic value worldwide through cost savings and improved operational performance.

California plays a vitally important role in moving our nation forward in the world of technology. Just as the state’s thriving tech industry surges ahead in setting new standards for society, so too must California.

As several nations, states, and cities have begun to embrace policies of online access to public sector data, they have enjoyed the benefits of increased operational efficiency and better collaboration. Here in California, cities across the state are turning internally gathered and maintained data into usable information for the public to access and leverage for the benefit of their communities.

In moving government to a more effective digital future, standards should be adopted to ensure that data collection and publication are standardized, including uniform definitions for machine-readable data. Online portals should also be developed to assist with public access to collected data.

With a public sector committed to success in the digital age, the residents and businesses of California will stand to benefit from the greater collaboration and integration, improved accountability, and increased productivity that will result.

In making California government more accessible to the people of the state, paragraph (7) of subdivision (b) of Section 3 of Article I of the California Constitution requires local governments to comply with the California Public Records Act and with any subsequent statutory enactment amending that act and furthering that purpose.

2. To make the catalog publicly available upon request
3. To post the catalog in a prominent location on the
agency’s website.

Exception

If the public interest served by not disclosing the information described clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure, the local agency may instead provide a system name, brief title or identifier of the system.

An "enterprise system" is a software application or computer system that collects, stores, exchanges and analyzes information that the agency uses that is both of the following:

A multi-departmental system or a system that contains information collected about the public, and

A system that serves as an original source of data within an agency.

An "enterprise system" does not include any of the following:

Information Technology security systems, including firewalls and other cybersecurity systems.